Welcome Jamie - Bird Chaser Extraordinaire - Amador, CA

As far as neighborhood citizenship goes, there are few things more embarrassing than chasing your dog through the neighbors’ yard yelling, “come” to a dog whom you can’t even see, let alone believe will actually come. It’s particularly confusing to neighbors when the dog is new to the family and has a human name, such as Jamie. I’m just glad I haven’t had to do this in my bathrobe, yet. 
 
Jamie is a bird-dog. Pure German Shorthair Pointer, she was bred to hunt and her instinct to chase birds is as strong as mine is to eat Rice Krispies at bedtime. She’s also a water-dog. One of the times I ran through the neighborhood yelling, “Jamie, Come!” (Yes, this happened more than once), our senior neighbors were so startled and shaken they reportedly called one another saying, “There is someone outside yelling.” 
 
The first thing I did after a particularly long game of Where is My Dog? was retrieve my water-logged retriever. By then, she was out of the pond, where I did not witness, but suspect she was playing her own game of chase with the Canada goose family who also resides in our hood. I apologized to the smiling land-owner, who complimented her beauty, and politely explained that they see their geese as pets. 
 
(The second thing I did, was wonder. If my neighbors heard me yelling outside, why didn’t they come out and see if I needed help?  What does it mean to be a good neighborhood citizen, really?)
 
Anyways, please help us welcome Jamie to the family. She’s an almost-two-year old GSP whom I purchased from a breeder in Loomis, CA - Winter Creek GSPs. The Branns are responsible and ethical breeders who have many years of breeding, training and competing experience. 
 
I feel compelled to explain this because I’ve only ever adopted rescue dogs in the past. Between the months of November and April, I looked at over a million rescue and shelter dogs in our region that need homes. I applied for approximately twenty dogs, and received only three calls back from rescues that had already, thanks to shelter in place orders and bored families everywhere, adopted out the dogs. I did a trial with a rescue dog who made me fear for the safety of my children. 
 
With summer and fire season fast approaching, I decided to call breeders of German Shorthair Pointers and ask about purchasing an adult female. I already have two puppies at home named Barrett and Graham, so an adult was in our cards. I quickly learned that a responsible breeder tests for and humanely breeds for health, intelligence, work ethic and temperament. Ironically, Pam was selling Jamie because she had “stopped birding.” I chose GSP because I have some experience chasing bird dogs (oh love Zahara and KD) and because the female size is manageable to me at forty-five pounds. Also, obviously, they have short hair. 
 
Jamie is silly, smart, beautiful, and quick-learning with floppy ears. She is physically and mentally tolerant of children streaking through the house with a sheet over their head at top volume (probably even more-so than me). To Jamie, children are the most interesting and wonderful beings in the world, second only to feathers. She is a little shy, but responds to strangeness with inquisition. She’s my first speckled dog and we love her and she is quickly learning “come,” because she’s also learning that she’s home.